


that'll be the day

by achillese



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human, Fluff, Food, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-29
Updated: 2014-03-29
Packaged: 2018-01-17 09:56:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1383226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/achillese/pseuds/achillese
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Scott and Stiles eat at a hella expensive restaurant, Derek's their waiter, and the macaroons cost three bucks a pop.</p>
            </blockquote>





	that'll be the day

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. La Durée is a real place. Yes, the prices are real. It makes me cry, too.  
> 2\. Prompted by [emrystiel](http://emrystiel.tumblr.com) with the word "macaroon" and this is the result.  
> 3\. Literally only the second Teen Wolf fic I've ever taken a whack at writing. Be gentle but firm!  
> 4\. Also I'm [on Tumblr](http://wintrsoldier.tumblr.com) as well if you'd like.

Stiles wasn’t the type of guy to frequent restaurants with names like La Sirene or Le Bernardin. For him, Subway was just fine and dandy, thank you very much. It was also all that his college sophomore-sized wallet could afford, so from a financial perspective, he was already disturbingly limited in his choices. He didn’t particularly care – it wasn’t like he had a deep-seated yearning for expensive European food – but right now, those rainbow-colored macaroons in the window were calling his name. His _full_ name. It was that serious.

“Dude,” Stiles said to Scott as he pressed his face closer to the glass. “ _Dude_. Look at them.”

“It looks like Rainbow Dash pooped on a fancy plate,” Scott countered.

“First off, ew. Second off, points for the My Little Pony reference. And third, mock all you want, they still look delicious.”

“Do you even know what a macaroon _is_?” Scott asked with a quirked eyebrow. 

“It’s a baked cookie.”

“Close enough, I guess.”

Stiles stepped back from the window and peered up at the gold embellished sign hanging above their heads. La Durée. Fancy shmancy. The ‘e’ even had that little accent mark over it.

“It probably costs like thirty bucks for one,” Stiles mused, deflating a little on the inside.

Scott watched him for a moment before taking him by the elbow and pulling him towards the front door. 

Stiles immediately balked. “Scott, wait, what’re you—”

“It’s not gonna kill you just to look at the price,” Scott reasoned. 

“Yes it will. In my soul, looking at things I can’t afford.”

Scott rolled his eyes at his melodramatics but there was a smile tugging at the corners of his lips as he opened the door and pulled Stiles in after him. The warm, homey smell of baked goods hit both their noses before the door even shut behind them.

The interior of the store – restaurant, whatever – was unsurprisingly lavish. Pastel green paint embossed with gold covered the walls, and the floors were a tiled black and white pattern. The ceiling, high over their heads, was lined with white miniature chandeliers, and the register all the way towards the back was flanked and boxed in by all manner of colorful sweets and baked food. There were a limited number of tables inside where a few customers were eating meals – real, full meals with pasta and meat and salad – and one waiter paused to rake their eyes judgingly over Scott and Stiles as they stood there in their faded jeans and T-shirts with their backpacks slung over one shoulder, slightly overwhelmed. 

Stiles spoke first: “Abort mission.”

“We’ll just ask the counter girl and leave.”

“I said ‘abort mission,’ McCall.”

But Scott wasn’t listening and instead strode right past the scattered tables to the front counter, smiling his mega-watt smile at the register girl behind it. Stiles had witnessed that smile stun many a girl back in high school, and even now in college, but counter-girl wasn’t having any of it.

“Hi,” Scott said cheerfully. “How much for a macaroon?”

“Maca _ron_ ,” the girl corrected without blinking. “And they’re $2.80.”

Both boys’ mouths fell open. 

“$2.80 a piece?” Stiles clarified.

The girl nodded. A piece of her brown hair escaped her bun and framed the side of her face. She tucked it behind her ear. “If you want a gift box of eight, it’s $26.”

“I might cry,” Stiles mused. “$2.80 can get me a meal at Taco Bell.”

The girl shrugged – what did she care about their financial woes – and absentmindedly started fiddling with some of the wrapped candy in a bowl to her right. 

Scott elbowed Stiles after a moment of silence and muttered, “Let’s eat lunch here.”

“ _Here_? Where a stinkin’ pink cookie costs three bucks?”

“New college experience, right? It’ll be fun. Besides, maybe the meal prices won’t be so bad.”

They were. They were pretty bad. Counter-girl let them sit at whatever table they wanted and they stared at the menu wide-eyed, trying to find something – anything – that was within their mental price range. 

In the end, Scott decided to take the dive off the deep end and went for a pasta dish, while Stiles chose to stick with a plate of French fries. ($12, ugh.)

Their closed menus sat on the table for all of two minutes before a waiter approached them, and both boys did double takes when they recognized the dark-haired, scruffy young man. 

“Derek?” Scott asked, surprised. “You work here?”

Derek Hale, college senior extraordinaire and dressed to impress with white slacks and a light blue button-up (the standard uniform for this place, apparently), seemed to roll not just his eyes but his whole head upwards when he saw who was sitting in his section. “What’re you two doing here?” he asked. 

“Eating your expensive food, that’s what,” Stiles replied.

“It’s not _my_ food, it’s the restaurant’s.” Derek held his pen and pad up to take their order. “What d’you want?”

Scott and Stiles put in their orders and Derek walked off with the menu. When he came back into view and Stiles could see he had nothing better to do than stand around staring at everyone else eating, he waved Derek over to their table.

“Need something?” Derek asked.

“Sit and talk, dude. We haven’t seen much of you since high school.” Stiles kicked out an empty chair towards him. 

Derek just stared at him like he’d grown antlers. “I’m supposed to be working.”

“We’re the only table in your section and we’re just waiting for our food,” Scott reasoned. 

Falling victim to the wide-eyed expectant stares of two college boys, Derek consented and sat down, his body sagging into the seat with relief as though he’d been waiting for a chance to sit all day.

“Working hard?” Stiles asked to break the building silence.

“Just tired. Been up almost all night studying for an exam tomorrow.” The dark circles under Derek’s eyes confirmed this. “I work the morning to mid-afternoon shift here on Wednesdays though so I had to get my ass here on time.”

“Well, uh, we had no idea you work here,” Stiles said.

“So you mentioned earlier,” Derek deadpanned. 

Scott leaned his elbows on the smallish table. “How long have you been working here?”

Derek deigned to answer Scott’s better-phrased question. “A year and a half now. Felt kinda guilty spending all my parents’ money here so I decided to get a job.”

“Make sense,” Stiles said before taking a long sip of the water that had already been in his glass when they sat down. “So. Got any good customer horror stories?”

“A guy came in once and tried to trick us into giving him a free meal by putting a fake cockroach in his apple pie.”

“Ew!” Stiles blurted while Scott made a face. 

Derek tried to contain his smirk. “We figured it out though. He’s banned for life now.” 

“If he’d succeeded though, man, what a lawsuit that would’ve been,” Stiles mused.

“Don’t you dare think about trying it on another restaurant,” Derek warned. “That was a cautionary tale, not a free life hack.”

“I’m not, I swear.” 

Both Derek and Scott gave him matching looks of disbelief. 

“Your lack of faith in me hurts like knives.”

Scott chuckled and kicked him lightly under the table.

“Did you guys declare your majors yet?” Derek asked. “I mean, I know it’s early for you still, but...”

“Neither of us have really thought about it, to be honest,” Scott admitted meekly. 

“S’alright, you’ve still got time.”

“I guess so.” Scott paused to drink some water of his own. “What about you? Got a job after graduation?”

“Architectural designer at Lunar Industries, right?” Stiles blurted before Derek could answer.

Again, Derek and Scott looked at him. 

“How d’you know that?” Scott asked.

Stiles could feel his cheeks turn pink. “I think, uh, Cora mentioned it to me in class awhile back.” Stiles couldn’t read the expression on Derek’s face so he reached into his pocket and pretended to check his phone for messages.

After a moment, Derek spoke: “I’ll be right back. Gonna check on your food order.”

As soon as Derek was out of earshot, Scott pounced. “Really? ‘Cora mentioned it’?”

“Your point?”

“How long’re you gonna keep your crush under wraps, Stiles?”

Stiles let his phone drop on the tablecloth. “It’s not a _crush_ , Scott, for fuck’s sake.”

“You’re right. ‘Infatuation’ is a better word. More SAT-worthy.”

“Bite me.”

Scott kicked him again under the table, harder this time. “I just want you to be happy, man. You’re never gonna be happy if you’re still trying to hide behind the same crush you’ve been harboring for like four years.”

“ _Six_ years, thank you very much.” Stiles moved his legs as far from Scott’s reach as possible. “It’s fine, Scott, trust me. All in due time.”

“The hell does that mean?”

Before Stiles could come up with an answer, Derek returned with their food. Stiles was surprised but elated – in a childish way – to see that the French fries were not only actual enormous, thick steak fries, but that they were stacked like a log cabin. 

“Did you stack the French fries yourself?” Stiles asked Derek in a singsong voice.

Derek rolled his eyes. “The cook stacks them. Don’t get so excited.”

“Damn. I was having fun picturing the big, gruff Derek Hale meticulously stacking a French fry tower.”

Derek’s lips twitched as he tried not to smile. “Sorry to disappoint.”

“I’m deducting one dollar from your tip for not stacking my French fries. That’s what you get.”

“Deduct _anything_ from my tip and I’ll put Nair in your shampoo. The joys of a dorm with a communal shower,” Derek reminded him, “is that nothing is sacred.”

Stiles groaned and covered his face with one hand. “I hate those showers. The curtains are almost see-through and I’m pretty sure I’ve seen way more of Jackson’s dick in that shower room than I ever wanted to see.”

“Now you know why I got my own apartment junior year.”

“Ever the wise choice.”

“It’s been known to happen.”

“Not often enough.”

Derek narrowed his eyes. “One more snarky comment from you, Stilinski, and I’ll knock your French fry tower over.”

“Fucking barbarian.”

It was just now that Stiles realized Scott had been quiet this whole time, looking back and forth from Derek to Stiles and back again with a slightly confused look on his face. Stiles cleared his throat nervously and finally picked up a fry, chomping half of it off in one large bite. Scott took the hint and started on his pasta while Derek nodded at them and turned on his heel to leave them to their food. 

Stiles had half a mind to ask him to sit down again so they could all keep talking, but one more suspicious look from Scott had him shut his mouth with the other half of the fry. 

It was the best plate of French fries Stiles had ever eaten – and also the most expensive. Twenty minutes later, after Stiles was long done with his fries and Scott had just finished polishing off his plate of pasta, he grudgingly pulled out his wallet and began rifling through it for a $20 bill when Derek’s voice behind him made him nearly leap out of his skin.

“This one’s on me, guys. Don’t worry about it.”

Stiles turned in his seat. “You sure, dude?”

Derek waved him off. “This place is stupidly expensive and you’re both jobless. Seriously, it’s on the house.”

Stiles sagged in his seat with visible relief. “I love you, man.”

Derek’s cheeks tinged pink and Scott coughed none too delicately. “I’m gonna hit the bathroom before we head back to campus,” Scott announced, giving Stiles a noticeably wide-eyed ‘what the fuck was that’ look before slipping out of his seat.

They both watched as Scott rounded a corner and vanished before Derek spoke: “Think he suspects?”

“That we’ve been covertly dating for the past four months? Nah, dude. I think we’re in the clear. But I might tell him soon. If I have to hear one more ‘you need to get over your crush on Derek’ speech I’m gonna end up tossing his mattress out the window with him on it.”

“Subtle.” 

Stiles grinned up at him. Derek reached down and gave Stiles’s hand a small, comforting squeeze before walking over to another table in his section where a couple had sat down earlier and were now waiting to give their order.

\---

The next day when Stiles rolled out of bed at noon, Scott was already in the common area and told him that there was a package for him on the kitchen table that had been left in the hallway. Confused and distracted while rubbing the sleep out of one eye, Stiles stumbled into the small kitchen area and found a box of twenty-four multicolored macaroons (‘maca _rons_ ,’ what the fuck ever) sitting on the table with a handwritten note taped to the blue-and-gold cover:

_These are also on the house. And no, I’m not telling you how much it cost._

_Enjoy (and share them, damnit)._

_\- D._

Stiles looked it up on Google it later. It cost $67.


End file.
